6 Chapter Six: Intuition of an Alchemist-in-Training

A week passed without incident, an endless stream of drudgery from sun up to moon fall as her goblin companions put it. It wasn't unlike grinding to raise her stats in real life, Gloria reasoned, but inside of the game, the only thing she seemed to be able to perfect was her cooking craft, flirty dialogue options, and pissing Zoran off.

"Ugh!" She shouted, plopping down on a stone step leading to the lower dungeons, swiping away a putrid gust of wind filled with cobwebs. Being promoted to [PHILOSOPHER] hadn't really changed much of anything about her daily routine. She got a special maid outfit with leather boots and various cool looking gadgets, but otherwise, she was still just a servant. Zoran swore it was for her own good so Gloria could hone her senses, getting her mind ready to accept his alchemic tutelage. It all sounded like a bullshit excuse to avoid her in Gloria's mind.

"And I never got an answer to my question... It was so strange to hear my name after, what, almost a month in here? But why now and why him when no one else can say it to this day?" she murmured, unzipping her boots and kicking them off. She wriggled her purple toes, sweaty from being crammed inside of leather, her sharp black toenails painfully sensitive. Gloria hopped death sequences weren't as awful as the feeling of wearing leather in a musty dungeon all day. There was only so much she could take.

"You're just a glorified chemist with a cool outfit and you want to boss me around..." Gloria gritted out between clenched teeth as she snapped her lunch into existence, taking it out of storage in her inventory. She was pissed that Zoran had assigned her to menial labor, which meant she couldn't level up quickly enough to heat the Demon King. She was anger she was still blinded by love for him, a man she'd only met in cutscenes up until then. But, above all, Gloria was enraged she couldn't figure out how to get the hell of of [REALM].

"At least all my food doesn't taste like absolute shit thanks to my main skill set, however little they give us down here," Gloria said to no one in particular, gobbling down her meal of Fig Newt Pie greedily, wondering if there was a way to transfer herself to the cooking wing instead of the cleaning crew in game.

"Wah!" She screamed as a hooked nose came into view. She cranes her neck over to see Charlotte grinning at her. All the other servants either ignored Gloria or feared her because the Demon King was playing close attention. So it was nice to have people she could consider her friends, even if they weren't human.

"Hey Charlotte! We're's Ophelia?" It was rare not to see them together.

"She got detained by a troll suitor and is trying to convince them they're not compatible." She quipped, sitting beside Gloria.

"Ahh. I see. Part of the dinner party delegation?" Gloria suppressed a snicker, thinking how flustered Ophelia must be.

"Yes. We're often confused for trolls, but even our King doesn't seem to understand we're different. She was sent to, er, "entertain" his guests." Gloria's laughter died in her throat.

His such a sexist piece of shit. It's a shame he's so damn hot! Gloria fumes inside.

"What about the guilds? You have guilds here, right? Shouldn't they lodge a complaint with the King for that type of behavior!?" She asked, her tail unintentionally twisting around Charlotte's. Blushing, the much smaller woman looked down, her eyes locked on a chipped stone on the floor.

"Guilds? That's a human concept. We live to serve our King gladly in all things." Charlotte spat sharply. She was saying all the same loyalist garbage Gloria had grown accustomed to hearing, but the was her squinty eyes narrowed and tiny fists balled up, Gloria knew she was angry at the mistreatment.

"The Demon King is has broken his pact with his devotees! The men get tossed into the dungeon and tortured, and the women get tossed around between his men. We should unionize and stop his tyranny!" Gloria said in a hushed toned, shocked by what sounded like pre-selected dialogue coming out of her mouth again?

"...Unionize?" Ophelia sounded out each syllable out, obviously a foreign word to her, her body freezing. A tiny slash of light made her image ripple, and Gloria just knew she was glitching just as the King did.

"Ah, I mean, well that's probably not the best term for..." Snapping her fingers to see if any options would come up. She froze when the only thing that appeared was {plan to overthrow the Demon King}.

What the hell!? Why do soon? I can barely sow a ripped skirt. What am I going to do against his mechanized cronies!? Gloria freaked out, trying to think of another option to save Charlotte from being stuck in a terminal loop. But, there was nothing she could do, it was the only path given to her.

Gloria hesitated at first before finally selecting the branch. Charlotte breathed in deeply, like she was fighting for air, finally whispering, "Never speak of treason to me again!"

Watching in horror as their friendship bar plummeted, Gloria could do nothing but hang her head in despair. She looked on helplessly as she stood and darted off, leaving Gloria alone with her own thoughts.

"Damn it! Why wasn't I given a choice to sit back and or overthrow that shitlord right away!" Gloria was convinced she was experiencing some cosmic punishment at this point. Every action she took since sneaking into Zoran's office lead to calamity.

"And who, may I ask, is the shitlord you wish to overthrow?" A chilling silence took over the already freezing cold dungeon hall. Turning slowly, fearful she'd loose her head at any moment, Gloria looked up and up and up until she meet the ruby-red gaze of the Demon King.